


Februwhump Prompt: Torture

by AnaliseGrey



Series: Februwhump Prompts 2019 [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Backstory, Caleb isn't in a great place guys, Character Study, Episode: s02e50, Febuwhump, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Spoilers, Torture, both mentally and physically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-20 18:03:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17627021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnaliseGrey/pseuds/AnaliseGrey
Summary: For the Februwhump prompt: Torture





	Februwhump Prompt: Torture

The first twenty-four hours were the hardest.

He’d grown soft in his travels with the Nein, had forgotten what it was to be made of hard edges, starving, cold and hurt. He’d forgotten what it was like to have someone’s sadistic focus directed at him, and it wasn’t a feeling he relished experiencing again.

After the initial adjustment, it became eerily familiar; it was easier than it had been when he was younger, easy to slide into it like a worn coat.

With Trent, he hadn’t been able to hide; he’d had to be present, in the moment, no matter how awful that moment was. Trent had insisted on focus, on not escaping from pain but facing it head on- _‘This is how you become stronger, Bren,_ ’ he’d said as he delicately slid the crystals in. ‘ _This is how you learn to protect your home, protect the Empire. If you flinch from the first sign of pain, you will never rise, never overcome. You will be no better than the rabble we seek to protect. You must be stronger than the pain, able to resist anything that might be thrown at you and retain focus in the moment. Cast it again.’_ \- and gods, he had tried. They all had. But he wasn’t enough, wasn’t _strong_ enough, and in the end he broke under the strain.

Later at the jail, before Nott, and even after, it had been harder. They’d asked him things, tried to provoke a response. There’d come a point where he realized they didn’t actually want to _know_ anything, were intentionally asking him things he couldn’t answer, and it had been freeing in a way, but also crushing. There wasn’t a way to make it _stop_ , no answer good enough or thorough enough. They could, would, and did hurt him as much as they wanted.

Now, though-

Now was easier in a way. There were no questions to answer, nothing to prove, nothing to rise above or against. There were only a few possible outcomes he could see from his current predicament.

The first was that they’d kill him on purpose.

It wouldn’t be fast or easy, and if they had a mind and knew what they were doing they could make it last a _very_ long time. He knew from personal experience how many ways there were to torture someone to death, and none of those deaths were ever pleasant and almost all of them were slow.

They could kill him by accident.

It wasn’t unheard of; even the most adept of torturers sometimes miscalculated- cut too deep, applied too much pressure, held you under just a bit too long- and lost someone before they meant to. There was always the risk that someone was weaker than you thought, or less hearty. He was stronger than he had been for a long time, but he was definitely still, as Jester liked to remind him, very squishy.

The Mighty Nein could come and rescue him.

It was possible, though getting less and less likely as the days went by. He knew they’d probably at least consider it; Nott, if no one else, would make the argument for trying to get him back. But there were cooler heads than Nott’s within the Nein, more practical heads, more pragmatic, more calculating. He’d been gone long enough that it was becoming reasonable to assume that either they couldn’t find him, or had chosen not to. He didn’t hold either against them.

The last and least-viable option was that he could rescue himself.

He knew he should try, should at least _consider_ it, but-

He was tired. No, not even tired; he was so drained he couldn’t quite fathom it. He’d had low points in his life before, many of them, but this went beyond anything he could easily recall. His whole body ached, and it was hard to remember what being free of hurt felt like. The shackles at his ankles had worn the skin raw within the first few days and were only getting worse. He wondered if it was overly-morbid to think that if he were lucky it would give him blood poisoning and kill him quick.

The chains on his wrists were enchanted and kept him from casting; every time he tried they seared him, cauterizing and adding to his misery all at once. He wondered if he kept trying if it would be enough to end him, if the little hurts adding up over time would finally tip him over some invisible edge. Death of a thousand cuts, but with fire. It wouldn’t be any less than he deserved.

But that would be the easy way out, and he hadn’t earned the easy way out. Even then, who was to say it would be the end? He didn’t hold any faith in the gods, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t have something to say to _him_ in the afterlife. He was in no hurry to get there and find out; he’d never been comfortable with things that were intrinsically unknowable. This at least he was familiar with.

It had been awhile, but he _knew_ hunger, _knew_ pain; he knew what it was to be hurt because someone else deemed it necessary, what it was to be at someone’s mercy, to suffer at their whim. He had fallen out of practice, but they were easy lessons to relearn, like getting back on a horse. The dull ache in his belly was familiar, the raw, heavy drag of iron at his wrists and ankles like a friend.

He couldn’t cast, could barely move. Escaping on his own was so unlikely it was laughable.

So he would wait- for a miracle, or the end, or the messy combination of the two.

He would wait.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm living my best life and writing these all out of order, whichever strikes my fancy.
> 
> Technically this is prompt #6, but fuck it. I'm writing it first. These fills will come at random through the month most like, lol.
> 
> Want to ask a question, give me a prompt, or say hi? Find me on tumblr at [Analisegrey](http://analisegrey.tumblr.com/) or on Twitter at the same handle!


End file.
